


Side Effects

by CrazyCatMeow



Series: The Meteor Effect [25]
Category: Hermitcraft
Genre: Angst, Brother fluff, Gen, Vex Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:15:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27245602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrazyCatMeow/pseuds/CrazyCatMeow
Summary: Sometimes the meteor isn’t all fun and games.
Relationships: Family - Relationship, Friends - Relationship, nope
Series: The Meteor Effect [25]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1529078
Comments: 26
Kudos: 114





	Side Effects

**Author's Note:**

> We have hit one year!

Mumbo sighs softly as he gently moves his fingers. The smooth metal of his fingers reflecting the soft sunlight. As he fully wakes up, numbers and system detail start to drift across his eyes. With the start he realizes, it’s been a year since the meteor hit. 

Rolling to his feet he walks into the kitchen, he reaches for some food before freezing and looking down at his hands. His eyes flick from a pale red to a deep blue. Taking a moment to re-calibrate his systems he frowns. It's been a few months since he’s needed to eat and a year since he could eat things other than redstone.

Systems humming softly he walks towards the edge of his base. Sitting on the edge of the towering structure he looks out towards Iskall’s tree taking in the view. After a few minutes he stands up, “I should get some work done,” He mumbles to himself. His voice glitching a little; trying to replicate his voice shaking. 

As he walks around the side of his base to get to his nether portal he stops for a moment to feed his base, making sure it wouldn’t die while he was gone. With a sigh he frowns, why did he have to make his base like this. Just as a constant reminder that he can’t eat. It just hurts sometimes.

Shaking his head to clear the unwanted thoughts he stands up, brushing his hands off on his pants. Straightening his tie he heads into the nether. 

Flying through the tunnel towards the industrial district Mumbo smiles softly to himself, his eyes turning a soft warm yellow. He’s set out to completely finish the item sorter. Well, as complete as it gets without all the farms completed, that part would take some time.

This makes him smile a bit wider, and even laugh a little. As he arrives at his industrial district he absentmindedly rubs at the metal on his cheekbones.

Pulling out his Redstone box he gets to work. Expertly placing the hoppers and repeaters. It’s mesmerizing, watching the robot expertly place Redstone.

As he stands his foot catches on a repeater, falling forward Mumbo lands on an active line. Yelping he rolls off of it. The pure Redstone energy overloading his circuits. 

Landing on the floor of his storage system, he sits up slowly. Somethings not right, he smells something burning. His arm jerks out to the side as he attempts to move it. His eyes fade into a pale blue as he inspects his arm. From the outside, it looks fine. Doing an internal scan he winces, his arm was in short, fried. 

Handshaking slightly he pulls his communicator out and shoots Doc a message asking if he could come over to help.

Almost immediately Doc agrees, saying he’ll be there in a few minutes.

As Mumbo explains what had happened, Doc winces as he pops a panel open he swears under his breath.

“Mumbo, I’m going to need to redo the Redstone wires. It’s all burnt,” Doc explains as he carefully deactivates the arm.

“Ok,” Mumbo nods as Doc gently picks through his wires.

“Give me a few more minutes,” Doc mutters as he inserts the new wires. As he finishes he sits behind Mumbo and carefully moves his arm, making sure it’s not going to break, “Ok, it should work properly. Be a little more careful, I can’t fix everything.”

Mumbo nods sheepishly, “Sorry, it won’t happen again.”

Doc nods satisfied with the answer, “Just be careful. I don't want you to get hurt.”

……..

With the meteor being a consistent thing in the hermit's lives a lot of things had to change and it's not always easy. Some things have gone from being able to do them without a second thought to having to concentrate to just get started. The meteor has caused so much hurt to the hermits.

To some people, the meteor has done nothing but become an inconvenience. Mumbo being a robot and not being able to eat. Hypno gaining the ability to do magic and Doc who simply has heightened instincts. Others like Exy can't always control what happens, whether it be floating off the ground or turning invisible.

Some problems are different, those who haven't had very bad transformations are no less valid than those who have had incredibly harsh transformations. They all have problems and issues that they must deal with.

One of the most apparent and noticeable issues is with Grian’s legs. Since his legs are bird legs specifically that of a parrot they aren't really built for walking, it's very difficult to walk around for longer than a few minutes. Running is completely out of the question. That form of motion is near impossible given the position of his legs compared to his body.

Most of the time Grian has to flutter along when walking with the others. In some areas, he has to be carried.

“Grian, are you ok?” Stress asks as she sits next to him.

Looking up he motions towards the entrance of the nether tunnel, “I can't follow them. It's too narrow in there for me to fly.”

She frowns, ”Well, I've got an idea, for ya,” She exclaimed as she pulls him up.

“You're going to offer to carry me, aren't you?”

Stress nods, “Is that alright?”

“It's fine, it’s just getting old. I wish I could walk normally.”

Her eyes soften as she wraps him in a hug.

Another drastic change was Xisuma. His transformation took all but the bare bones of his humanity. His eyes turned solid green. He grew deadly sharp horns perfect for ripping flesh apart. His tail is much the same, a sharp barb at the end, and small spikes running along its length. Sharp spikes extending down his back, clawed hands, furred arms, sharp tusk-like fangs, and animal-like back legs. 

One of the worst parts of his transformation is the spines. They make it nearly impossible to get close to people without having to worry about almost hurting them. He’s smacked most of the hermits with his tail at some point and has gotten into a few sticky situations with his spines.

Frowning Xisuma carefully reaches back to attempt to dislodge one of his blankets that had gotten caught around his spikes. 

Grumbling to himself he pulls it off his back, “Why,” he asks to the empty room, “Why me?”

It was ok at first, having to keep his distance to avoid poking people with his spines, but it had gotten to the point where he’s starting to get a little bit touch starved.

Exy’s done his best to help him, but one-sided hugging isn’t really helping if he can’t be hugged back. The best he can do is simply hang out in a place with multiple hermits. It's still hard. Every day throws yet another challenge at the hermits but Xisuma keeps pushing through. 

When the transformations turn more frustrating than dangerous it's hard. With Bdubs he can’t seem to get as much stuff done. Well, sure him periodically sleeping throughout the day is a little more efficient but there are times when he’s the only one awake. Even with the semi nocturnal hermits.

It’s a little lonely, he can’t go and talk to someone if he wants to. He can’t ask for help. The best he can do is find something to watch or build something.

At first, the night was awesome, he could do whatever he wanted. After a while, it grew to the point where it was just a time he had to spend alone. 

Being alone when you can choose to be with the others at any given moment is nice. It’s a calm sense of peace. When you’re alone and there’s no one to turn to, it’s a cold unforgiving truth. 

Sometimes things look good from afar but up close, it's nothing. Like when you see a slight glint in the rocks so you go and take a look, and it turns out to be nothing more than an old gum wrapper. For Keralis that’s what happened. When his wings started growing.

It seemed so amazing, he would be able to fly. To buzz around the server and have fun. Sadly life doesn’t always turn out the way you want it to. 

Turns out the wings are just about useless. They can’t even muster enough force to knock something over. So Keralis is stuck walking everywhere. The wings are just a tiny little bit too big to comfortably fit under his elytra. After all the roads were put in it was pretty easy to get around. 

But, seeing your friends, your family go faster than you, be able to fly. For something that’s completely out of your control, it hurts, a lot. 

There’s not a way to tell what will happen but what you can do is keep looking ahead and focus on what you can do.

One of the worst things that happened was to Beef. His entire lower body was reconstructed. His legs were replaced with the body of a steer. As one can expect suddenly having four legs instead of two is quite a shock. It took him weeks to comfortably stand up. Even longer was the process of learning to walk. It wasn't easy. Beyond the initial walking across the room, he didn't want to move.

It was uncomfortable and it’s pretty weird. The leg motions are completely different. Not to mention the uncomfortable feeling when people touch his fur. Thankfully that was fixed for the most part when Keralis had brought him some blankets that normally are for horses but work just fine on cattle. 

The blankets keep others from touching his fur and they are pretty soft. It's not the best solution but it's the only one they have. 

………

Xisuma looks at his communicator with wide eyes. A name that he never thought he would see again blinking innocently back at him. Grabbing the communicator he takes off towards the shopping district. 

As he bursts through the nether portal. He almost smacks into Scar who’s trying to enter the portal. Scar shoots higher into the air out of surprise before waving as he flits through the portal. 

Xisuma pads up the steps to the town hall into the deputy to the mayor's office, “Uh, Bdubs, I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” Xisuma says softly as he enters the room.

Bdubs looks up nervously, ”Did something happen?”

“Nothing bad don’t worry.”

“Now I am worried,” Bdubs mumbles as his tail flicks.

“I got a message from Pungence.”

Bdubs freezes, “He’s ok?”

“He sounds fine. Look,” Xisuma holds his communicator out showing the phantom the message from his brother.

As Bdubs reads the message his face breaks into a grin, “He’s back. Ha, I knew he would-” His face falls as he realizes, ”-he wants to come here. Xisuma is that safe?”

“I don’t think so,” Xisuma murmurs.

Bdubs deflates, “I miss him.”

“Why don’t you go to meet him in the mega-hub? We could find somewhere for you to meet privately,” Xisuma suggests.

“We could do that,” Bdubs slowly says as he stands up. 

Xisuma nods, as his communicator buzzes, “Oh no.”

“What’s, oh no?”

“He just found out about the meteor. He’s asking if you're ok.”

Bdubs swallows as his tail flicks, “We need to talk to him. How fast can we get to a meeting place.”

Pulling his communicator out, Xisuma starts trying to find a place where they could talk in private, “Send him a message telling him to meet us in the Watchers office building.”

As they arrive at the Watchers building Bdubs shrinks into himself, “Doc, I don’t know if this is a good idea.”

Doc stops and turns around looking at him, “You will be ok.”

Bdubs yawns his fangs glinting softly, “Let’s find the room.”

They wander around looking for the meeting room, after a few minutes they find it. Bdubs immediately slumps over the table yawning, “We probably should have done this like an hour later. Wake me up when he gets here.” 

As Bdubs falls asleep, Doc steps out of the room to talk with a few Watchers that popped in to chat. 

Xisuma walks over a few minutes later with a very confused Pungence following a few feet behind him, “Hey, Doc.”

Doc waves as Pungence smiles awkwardly at him, “So, what’s happened to Bdubs?”

“He’s been turned into a half phantom,” Doc quietly explains, “He passed out a while ago so he should wake up in a few minutes.”

“Hold up, he passed out? And you aren't concerned,” Pungence says raising an eyebrow.

“He just fell asleep,” Xisuma explains, “He sleeps in short segments throughout the day, about every four hours for like thirty minutes.”

Pungence frowns, “Really?”

“Unfortunately, he tried to get back to a regular sleep schedule, but that just ended with him being sleepy all the time,” Xisuma says, flicking his tail closer to his legs.

“That sounds like Bdubs,” Pungence mutters as he heads into the room.

As he catches a glimpse of his brother his face falls, “What happened?” he whispers as he sits across from him. 

Bdubs sits up and yawns as he spots his brother; he snaps his mouth shut, his tail curling close to his body, “Hey, Pungence… what's up?”

“Hey, uh, can you explain what’s happening?”

Bdubs sighs, “What do you want first, what’s happening in general or what's happening on the server?”

“What's happened to you.”

“Ok, so clearly I'm a phantom, I've got solid green eyes, fangs, some external bones, scales, the tail, and sometimes I have wings.”

“Sometimes?”

“Yeah, at night I get wings. It's like bat wings, and they are useless.”

“So, how did this happen?”

Bdub's face darkens, “The meteor, he wanted revenge on the Vex for something and showed up on the server. Since he's a rock he uses magic to do this.”

Pungence laughs a little at how his brother explained what was happening, “So, do you have any idea how to stop him?”

“Not really, he's not going to target anyone else.”

“So…”

“So it won't be worth it if we try something then mess up and he targets others.”

Frowning Pungence listens to his brother talk, it's a little concerning that they aren't trying to do anything. 

As the conversation ends Bdubs yawns as Pungence hugs him, as he tells him something, “Hey I'll be here for a while if you ever want to come to visit.”

“Oh don't you worry you'll see me.”

…….

The meteor has done awful things to the hermits, sometimes it takes the ability to do something. So many hermits left in somewhat awkward positions having to ask for help with simple day to day tasks.

A good example of this is with Tango. Since he’s a Phoenix he doesn’t handle being cold too well. He can’t comprehend things as he slows down almost like he’s preparing for some sort of hibernation.

When Zedaph found this out it was a complete mess. Team Zit had gone out to find a good spot for an ice farm. Impulse had told Tango not to come but of course, that bit of advice was ignored.

They found Tango after he had fallen out of the sky. Impulse was understandably upset about this and was scolding him until Zedaph pointed out that he was falling asleep. 

Grabbing him they take off and bring him to the warm jungle where he is thoroughly chewed out.

A few weeks later a somewhat similar incident happened with Impulse. It started out with a message from him saying he was going to the end to grab some wither roses. 

Three hours later he still hasn't returned. Growing nervus Zedaph and Tango head to the end to look for him. It doesn't take long to find him. 

He's laying on his back looking up at the endless void. As Tango and Zedaph sit next to him, he mumbles something about the void. 

Now the others are nervous, it's never a good sign when Impulse doesn’t greet them. They talk to him for a bit and he slowly starts coming back to his senses. After they get the needed wither roses they head home. 

Of all the hermits Jevin has a pretty avoidable hindrance, simply don't go in water or rain. Unfortunately, his base is a towering mega structure over the ocean.

A fairly common death message has been, Jevin dissolved in water. The hermits try and help him out when he’s in a space where he’s unable to work. It's not uncommon for one of the others to be working on the legs of his base.

He sometimes will split in half a few times so he can hang off of another hermit’s back so he can help out with building a little. It is a little bit confusing that he can do this as no one else was there to see it happen the first time he found this out.

It wasn't a fun moment. A whole bunch of mobs had shown up on his base and he wasn't prepared. The mobs managed to kill him and he was stuck in a death loop. When Hypno came over to fix the problem he was met by four small bright blue slimes that look to be about eight. They were completely terrified and immediately ran to him. 

Max was surprised that this could happen, but he suspects it was because of how the vex returned him to normal. When they split him from the other slimes it let him split. After the small slimes had calmed down they fused back together to become a very confused normal Jevin.

A very sad thing that happens sometimes is with a certain sheep. Zedaph is half sheep and as such he has very strong herding instincts. When sheep are lost and separated from the herd they get very agitated. It's a good instinct to have when one is prey and Zedaph is no different. 

If he is separated from the other hermits for too long he feels like he's been abandoned. If he feels like this he will often go to his sheep and hang out with them. It's not the same, but it helps. 

Sometimes when he’s been working underground for days on end and someone stops by he’ll follow them. When they stop to let him move on he has to force himself to walk away. 

He can’t help wanting to be near the others. Sometimes he will show up in Tango’s or Impulses base and they will have a spontaneous sleepover. 

At one point he was left in the shopping district. He didn't feel like going back to his base so he was laying on the grass. He had fallen asleep and there wasn't anyone around. Someone had given him a blanket and a carrot. It was around midnight.

Not wanting to risk the nether this late he bleats softly to himself. A weird crunch from off to the side startles him so he bleats loudly. The sound of hooves against the road sounds as something comes closer.

It’s Beef, as he spots Zedaph frozen in place, frowning softly he lays down and lets Zedaph curl against his side. After a few minutes, both are sleeping. 

One of the more heart-wrenching transformations was Scars. He’s the size of a vex. This causes a whole bunch of problems.

Flying is a bit like running. You can do it for a while but you're going to need to take breaks. His building is at a disadvantage. A lot of the time he’s too small to work fast. 

Sometimes he can’t trigger doors to open and is occasionally looked over. He doesn’t blame the others, he really is absolutely tiny. 

The Vex showed him how to do magic, how to create walls, and other things. After Max appeared he was able to refine that and make his usual beautiful building again.

The meteor has ruined so many things and gives nothing in return. He is a cruel person who hurts people for his own entertainment.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you like this, next up is Xb, and it’s going to be awesome.
> 
> If you liked this please leave a comment.


End file.
